Phoenix (8 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Panic grips my heart. Nia is going to dive into their midst and I cannot let her. But she’s got so much of a head start! She’s twice as close to the yagi as she is to me, and if I barrel into her with too much speed, low in the sky as she is now, I’ll only push us both into the swarm.

Nia is flying low, nearly to the head of the swarm, when her speed slows.

Is she hesitating?

Maybe my arguments have gotten to her. Maybe she wishes she could say goodbye, though I doubt I’m about to finally get a longing look like the one she gave Ram.

It doesn’t matter why she’s hesitating. Her slowing down gives me and Ram just enough of a split-second advantage to swoop alongside her, one on each side, and grasp her upraised arms by the wrists. We tug her up, high in the sky, circling wide, and away.

She doesn’t really fight us. If anything, she simply wilts between us, deflating like a noiseless, tearless sob. Her wings are extended but not moving, so that I’m not sure if she’s cooperating or if it’s simply the push of the wind keeping them open.

Either way, it helps us make it back to our campsite in a hurry. The fire is still going and a few of our things, including the bearskin, lie scattered about.

Ram gives me a look that says he wants me to put the fire out (we dragons try to be ecologically responsible as much as we can—I, for one, have no desire to burn down Siberia, not even by accident). So I let go of Nia’s wrist (Ram still has secure hold on her other arm) and I swoop over to the stream, filling my large dragon mouth with water and spewing it onto the fire. Steam rises and fills the valley.

I spit a couple more mouthfuls of water on the fire before scattering the steaming coals with my taloned toes, stomping out every hint of red glow, making sure the embers are dead. We’re not going to play into the old cliché about dragons burning things down. Not today.

Ram bundles the last of our things in the bearskin, wraps it into a tight burrito, and grabs the improvised parcel with his talons as he rises into the air, tugging Nia along beside him.

Nia beats her wings this time.

As I rise to meet them, I watch Ram give Nia a warning look that says he’ll let go of her arm so long as she doesn’t try to escape. I can’t see the look Nia gives him in return, be he releases his hold on her wrist and we fly, with Nia unfettered between us, to the south.

We’ve got to stay ahead of the yagi, but I’m flying on the fumes of adrenaline now.

I was tired before.

I got very little sleep, and now I’ve had panic and exertion and I’m getting hungry. Also cranky, since Ram’s being a selfish jerk and Nia didn’t even care enough for me to give me a longing look before she flew off to sacrifice herself to the yagi, and she only made me think she was listening to me so she could get my guard down enough to make her escape.

She may be beautiful, but she’s really not all that nice, not unless she wants to be. And she obviously doesn’t care about being nice to me.

We’re soaring through the sky at top speed, since for all our watchfulness yesterday we saw almost no sign of human life, and now there are yagi close on our heels, and the fear of what they’ll do if they catch up to us outweighs our worries about being seen, especially since that risk is minimal in Siberia.

But truly, we don’t dare fly too far, because the coast is somewhere up ahead and there are bound to be some people there. Not many, but some.

And besides that, there’s the simple fact that I. Am. Exhausted.

I could probably sleep for three days straight at this point, if it wasn’t nearly guaranteed the yagi would kill us in our sleep within the first few hours of our slumber. They emit a bone-chilling wailing noise that can literally paralyze a person (or dragon) who stops moving long enough for their bones to lock up.

Which means, if they sneak up on us while we’re asleep, we could awaken, already paralyzed, with no way to defend ourselves as they close in and finish us off.

That’s not the way I want to die.

Although if I don’t sleep soon, I might fall right out of the sky, crash into a tree in my sleep, and be gone before the yagi catch up to me. Also not a great way to die, but preferable to yagi paralysis.

Ultimately, though, I’d prefer to live.

So I’m glad when Ram steers us toward a plateau near the top of a mountain. We land on a fairly-flat ridge, about thirty feet long by twenty feet wide, tapering to nothing at the sides, with a superb view of the western valley and more mountain at our backs.

We’re not completely safe from the yagi here. They’ll eventually catch up to us, but we’ll at least be able to see them coming long before they arrive.

Ram returns to human form and tells me to go catch us some supper. I bound away in search of food, goaded by my growling stomach, before I realize what he did.

First of all, he ordered me around like I’m his inferior—and right in front of Nia, too. But worse than that, he finagled it so that he’s alone with Nia for however long it takes me to hunt up a meal.

On top of everything else, the bear he caught last night was impressive and delicious, and Nia was so grateful for the bear skin, so I feel like I need to come back with an even bigger bear, or maybe two big bears, just to top him.

But when I see a herd of elk I remember I’m hungry. And anyway, isn’t there an old saying about losing a battle to win a war? Not that we’re at war. Not at all.

It’s just that, in this battle, I think the best possible current strategy is for me to eat elk right now.

I grab two of the biggest elk I can catch and bring them back to the plateau, only to find Ram and Nia wrapped up in the bearskin together.

Granted, she’s shivering. And it is insanely cold up here on the mountain, in Siberia, with the sun going down.

I toss an elk at Ram in what might be slightly more of a fling than a toss, so that he has to jump out from the bearskin to catch the animal, and the elk’s haunches slap his face in an undignified manner, and when I glance at him next he’s probing his nose as though checking to make sure it’s not broken.

Well. Now I feel better. I switch into human form and draw my swords, swiftly butchering the other elk while casting a glance at Ram.

He’s skinning the carcass I tossed him, but he shoots me a look that says he’s not happy with me.

And why not? Because he wasn’t quick enough to neatly catch the supper I brought back for him? (His nose is not broken, by the way.) Or is his unhappy look because he thinks I ran away with Nia, or kidnapped her—neither of which I actually did.

Or is he angry with me because deep down, he knows he would have slept through Nia’s escape, that the yagi would have killed her by now if I hadn’t intervened?

But instead of being grateful for my help, he resents it.

Ram is a perfectionist. That means he always has to be perfect, or he gets grumpy.

Whatever. He can go right ahead and be imperfectly grumpy while I woo Nia away from him. I shall be charming and helpful and kind, and he can be the grouchy perfectionist who isn’t nearly as perfect as he likes to think he is, and when our journey is over our father will tell him he should be more like me, instead of the other way around, as always before.

I blow a blast of fire to roast a meaty leg for Nia before Ram even has his carcass skinned. I hand Nia the roast leg with a little bow, and she smiles and thanks me. Then I roast a leg for myself.

While I suppose it would be faster to eat in dragon form, we need to discuss our plans. I can’t see the yagi horde approaching, not even with my dragon vision, but I know they’re out there. Of course they are.

“What are we going to do to get away from the yagi?” I ask, being purposely pleasant, thus forcing Ram to either be pleasant back or look like a jerk. “We’ve got to sleep—soon—and for more than just a couple hours each. If we could make it to the ocean, we could sleep while floating.”

But Nia shakes her head vigorously, swallowing a bite of meat before explaining, “They’re in the sea. Not the same yagi you’re used to, but another kind.”

“The water yagi? Like the ones in the lake near the cave? We call them water yagi,” I explain, letting her know we’re familiar with the creatures.

Nia nods. “I have been transporting them for the white witch.”

Ram inserts himself into the conversation with a glance my way that says he won’t be left out. “Are they in the ocean? We only ever encountered them in Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, besides Eudora’s little lake.”

Nia looks apologetic. “I’ve made many deliveries to the Sea of Okhotsk. It is the closest point of entry to the interconnected oceans of the world, so it was the most efficient point of delivery. The white witch feared her lake was becoming overwhelmed and she wanted her creatures delivered as swiftly as possible. She had me make many, many deliveries here. The water yagi will be plentiful in this area—even more plentiful than in the Black Sea or Caspian Sea.”

I wince at her prognosis. I can’t blame Nia—she was only doing what she had to do—but at the same time, I don’t know how we’re going to rest. We simply can’t take the risk of sleeping anywhere they might catch up to us, or we’ll wake up unable to move.

Maybe she was right. Maybe there is no escape from the yagi.

But even if there isn’t any escape, even if they’re bound to catch up to us eventually, I’m not going to give up and let Nia turn herself over to them. If they are going to bring me down, I intend to go down fighting. And if I’m going to fight, I need my sleep. “We’ve got to find somewhere to rest.” I study the skyline. No sign of the yagi yet, but we know they’re not far away.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Nia continues. “I can’t think how we’ll get any rest, more than an hour or two here and there, as we stay ahead of them. Eventually they’ll wear us down and catch up to us. There’s no real escape.”

“Isn’t there?” Ram questions. He got his elk butchered and a leg roasted, which he started eating while Nia explained about the water yagi. Now he has a glint in his eye that tells me he’s got a plan—and that he fully expects Nia to be impressed by it. He directs a question at me. “How did Mom and Dad stay ahead of the yagi that hunted them when Dad was bringing Mom home to Azerbaijan?”

I correct my brother. “They didn’t. They yagi kept catching up to them, and they had to fight them off.”

“But before that—they hid out in Prague.” Ram tilts his chin upward in that superior, lecturesome way he has. “Yagi are bred from cockroaches. They avoid people, crowds, bright lights, loud noises. They avoid cities.”

While I’m pretty sure cockroaches actually love cities, I understand Ram’s point. The yagi can’t bother us—not obviously, at least—as long as there are people around. I continue scanning the horizon with my dragon vision. In addition to no yagi, I also note a shortage of cities. Or villages. Or any people at all. “Great—where’s the nearest city?”

“Beijing,” Nia offers, “but we’re at least a thousand miles from there, and none of us is in any condition to fly a thousand miles without rest.”

“It doesn’t have to be a city.” Ram slams his sword down, severing another leg from his elk. “A fishing village or port town will do—we should be able to find one of those on the coast. All we have to do is surround ourselves with people. Find a hotel in the middle of town. Get a room. And sleep.” He blasts a torrent of fire onto the elk leg.

I thoughtfully chew the bite in my mouth. I’m so tired I could fall asleep on this freezing cold mountain. The thought of a hotel room with a bed and blankets and pillows sounds beyond blissful. And the walls would block the wailing sound of the yagi, protecting us from paralysis even if they crept up on our hotel while we slept. It’s a tantalizing idea.

But there are obvious holes in my brother’s plan. “We don’t speak Russian. How are we going to get a room?”

“It’s a port town. Somebody’s bound to know—” Ram starts.

But Nia cuts him off. “I speak fluent Russian.”

If I look surprised, I can’t help it. “You do?”

“I learned it from a computer course in the white witch’s library. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. There wasn’t much else to do for entertainment. I finished the Russian course and I’m halfway through Chinese.”

Ram looks pleased—both with Nia, and the possibility that his plan will prove successful. “Nia can help us find a room. And money talks. Do we have any credit cards with us?”

“In the wallet pocket of my scabbard belt.” I would put more emphasis on the fact that I’ve got a credit card and Ram doesn’t, but that’s not my only concern. “So, we’re just going to walk into town barefoot, two Middle Eastern guys and their African supermodel friend, in boxer shorts and a bikini, covered in swords? I’m sure Siberian fishing villages see that kind of thing all the time.”

I inherited my gift of sarcasm from my mother.

Ram scowls. He did not inherit a gift for sarcasm, and I think he resents it. “We have our cloaks. Once we get to town, we can go shopping. We just have to get there.”

But even as he’s talking, Nia unfurls one of the elk skins and flicks her right hand so that her talons sprout independently of the rest of her dragon-ness. She slashes the length of the elk skin with her razor-sharp nails, cutting long, ribbon-like strips. “We don’t have to go into town barefoot,” she explains, slashing another batch of ribbons. “Fresh leather isn’t as practical as tanned, and we’ll probably attract dogs, but we won’t have to go into town barefoot.”

She seems to have totally missed, or else chosen to ignore, my indirect compliment about looking like a supermodel.

Or maybe she doesn’t see that as a compliment. Hopefully I didn’t accidentally insult her. That wasn’t at all my intent, but how was I to know?

I still don’t understand her, which makes it so difficult to forge a connection.

As the sun sinks low and the evening fades, Nia shows us how to make boots from the elk skins. The seams are a little bulky, being stitched together with the strips of leather, using bone shards as needles (we pre-drill each hole with our talons—so much sharper than any bone shard, and we can do four holes at a time once we get the hang of it).